This week our reading focused on the concept of language acquisition and post-structuralism. I understand the concept of post-structuralism as a reaction to structuralism, which posits that human thought can be categorized by connections between "big picture" elements and by distinct differences between different types of people. Post-structuralism seeks to clarify that human agency is a significant element of differences between individual thought patterns, which structuralism appears to downplay. It's still all very ambiguous, but I feel that I understand post-structuralism better in the context of multilingualism and identity with regards to language.
Language is, after all, a part of all of our identities. The languages we speak can demonstrate our cultural backgrounds and our goals--for instance, if I actively taught myself Finnish, that might speak to my desire to live in Finland one day. Language is one facet of identity, and I tended to focus on the bigger concept of identity while reading Norton's article, even thought it dealt specifically with language. I found Norton's explanation of identity fascinating: she writes that identity "signals the way in which a person understands her or his relationship to the world, how that relationship is constructed across time and space, and how the person understands possibilities for the future."
Language is one aspect of identity that fits into Norton's explanation. However, I zoomed in on this particular explanation because it reinforces the flexibility of identity, something that I am coming across in my current research project. I am attempting to understand the ways that young Arab-Americans identify themselves in the post-9/11 United States. What I have come to realize is that identity is such a fluid concept that asking someone how they identify themselves culturally is quite simply, a pointless question. I have had several respondents ask me what I mean by culture. The general attitude is that attempting to define "American" or "Arab" culture is impossible because it will always rely on incorrect stereotypes and unfounded assumptions. Identity is such a fluid concept that capturing a snapshot of it inherently leads to misrepresentation--individuals' identities constantly evolve over time and adapt to changing realities.
With the fluidity of identity in mind, then, I would like to turn back to Norton's explanation of identity and argue that the way in which a person understands their place in the world is constantly in flux. One particularly relevant example is how a college student understands their place in the university environment. The first year, their identity as a student may bounce around between different majors; over the course of four years, that academic identify solidifies with a particular discipline. After graduation, that former college student may visualize different possibilities for the future based on their experience in college--graduate school, a career, something else entirely. Where that student ends up after graduation depends on their experiences forming their identity during college, which depends on a host of interconnected factors: friend groups, course load, extracurricular activities. A student's identity during college is constantly in turmoil. And this fluidity of identity applies to life as a whole: our identities as individuals are based on an interplay between our immediate environments and our past environments, yet these identities transcend all of those things in the end.
Language is, after all, a part of all of our identities. The languages we speak can demonstrate our cultural backgrounds and our goals--for instance, if I actively taught myself Finnish, that might speak to my desire to live in Finland one day. Language is one facet of identity, and I tended to focus on the bigger concept of identity while reading Norton's article, even thought it dealt specifically with language. I found Norton's explanation of identity fascinating: she writes that identity "signals the way in which a person understands her or his relationship to the world, how that relationship is constructed across time and space, and how the person understands possibilities for the future."
Language is one aspect of identity that fits into Norton's explanation. However, I zoomed in on this particular explanation because it reinforces the flexibility of identity, something that I am coming across in my current research project. I am attempting to understand the ways that young Arab-Americans identify themselves in the post-9/11 United States. What I have come to realize is that identity is such a fluid concept that asking someone how they identify themselves culturally is quite simply, a pointless question. I have had several respondents ask me what I mean by culture. The general attitude is that attempting to define "American" or "Arab" culture is impossible because it will always rely on incorrect stereotypes and unfounded assumptions. Identity is such a fluid concept that capturing a snapshot of it inherently leads to misrepresentation--individuals' identities constantly evolve over time and adapt to changing realities.
With the fluidity of identity in mind, then, I would like to turn back to Norton's explanation of identity and argue that the way in which a person understands their place in the world is constantly in flux. One particularly relevant example is how a college student understands their place in the university environment. The first year, their identity as a student may bounce around between different majors; over the course of four years, that academic identify solidifies with a particular discipline. After graduation, that former college student may visualize different possibilities for the future based on their experience in college--graduate school, a career, something else entirely. Where that student ends up after graduation depends on their experiences forming their identity during college, which depends on a host of interconnected factors: friend groups, course load, extracurricular activities. A student's identity during college is constantly in turmoil. And this fluidity of identity applies to life as a whole: our identities as individuals are based on an interplay between our immediate environments and our past environments, yet these identities transcend all of those things in the end.